Indianapolis Union and Belt Railroads

Jeffrey Darbee

Publication Year: 2017

In an era dominated by huge railroad corporations, Indianapolis Union and Belt Railroads reveals the important role two small railroad companies had on development and progress in the Hoosier State. After Indianapolis was founded in 1821, early settlers struggled to move people and goods to and from the city, with no water transport nearby and inadequate road systems around the state. But in 1847, the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad connected the new capital city to the Ohio River and kicked off a railroad and transportation boom. Over the next seven decades, the Indiana railroad map expanded in all directions, and Indianapolis became a rail transport hub, dubbing itself the "Railroad City." Though the Pennsylvania and the New York Central Railroads traditionally dominated the Midwest and Northeast and operated the majority of rail routes radiating from Indianapolis, these companies could not have succeeded without the two small railroads that connected them.

In the downtown area, the Indianapolis Union Railway was less than 2 miles long, and out at the edge of town the Belt Railroad was only a little over 14 miles. Though small in size, the Union and the Belt had an outsized impact, both on the city’s rail network and on the city itself. It played an important role both in maximizing the efficiency and value of the city’s railroad freight and passenger services and in helping to shape the urban form of Indianapolis in ways that remain visible today.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright Page

CONTENTS

Preface

From successive generations of Americans the railroad has exacted
an almost universal fascination. It is not difficult to understand
why this has been so. Prime mover in the civilization
of a continent and the building of a nation, and, in its time, the
indispensable mover of goods and purveyor of personal transportation,
the railroad wove a net of steel rails that bound America
together and brought a breath of far and fascinating places to
the most commonplace of lives. Touching every life, the railroad
could not be ignored....

Acknowledgments

My name is on the cover of this book, but it’s there because a
whole army of helpful people made it possible. Many other authors
have said this, but it is as true as ever: I could not have done
it without them.
My thanks go first to Thomas G. Hoback, founder of the Indiana
Rail Road (INRD), who conceived the idea of a book on the
Indianapolis Union (IU) and the Belt and sponsored my efforts.
He also showed admirable patience during a long research and...

Introduction

This book discusses the development of the steam railroads
of Indianapolis and how they affected the urban form and character
of the city, but the focus is on the two smallest ones: the
Indianapolis Union Railway and the Indianapolis Belt Railroad.
A basic resource for any railroad historian is The Official Guide
of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States,
Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. That being something of...

1. Early Indianapolis: Settling “The West”

Before the United States achieved independence from England,
the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains were largely
unknown, but with the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 constraints
upon westward expansion were gone and land-hungry
easterners began to move. For many of them, the new United
States, which had recently been thirteen British colonies, was
simply too crowded, but another imperative was also at work:
the promise that a free society and a vast land would offer wealth...

2. The Railroad Arrives: A New Travel Technology

Technological change comes so quickly today that each
new advance—in flight, medicine, automobile design, computers,
any of a thousand things—often elicits little response. We are
conditioned to expect the Next Big Thing and, when it arrives,
we are already waiting for Version 2.0. So it may be difficult to
imagine the effect the railroad had on Americans in the era before
the Civil War. The low friction and high load-carrying capacity...

3. The Union

On any given day, Indianapolis International Airport is a
bustling scene of cars, buses, vans, taxis, arriving and departing
flights, and crowds of people. Inside the terminal, ticket agents
serve lines of passengers, baggage is tagged and sent on its way,
and waiting areas are full of travelers. Now imagine that same
activity transported to Indianapolis Union Station in the heart
of downtown Indianapolis and backdated some eight or nine...

4. The Belt: Another New Idea

The Union Tracks built as part of the Union Depot project
carried passenger and freight trains as well as local switching
moves; in the early years they were more than adequate for the
traffic they carried. The tracks enabled interchange of cars between
railroads, and for shipments originating or terminating
in downtown Indianapolis the railroads built freight houses and
spur tracks.1 It would not be long, however, before the Union
Tracks became too crowded....

5. The City and Its Railroads

W. R. Holloway’s history described the railroad as spurring
Indianapolis to mature, causing “a change of features, of form,
a suggestion of manhood, a trace of the beard, . . . of virility. . . .
Everyone felt the impulse . . . of prosperity.”1 He was right, if a
bit florid: urban maturity meant having railroad service. And for
larger cities with multiple rail lines, the real rite of passage was a
union station, a gateway to the city, a stepping-stone to...

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